Lurie Speaks Softly, Carries Big ‘Stick

We are conversing with the owner of the San Francisco Giants, Mr. Bob Lurie, who is surprisingly calm in the light of what has been happening to him.

To start with, the Giants lose the first two games of the World Series and, aiming to recoup, run into an earthquake.

Delayed 12 days, they return with firm resolve, explaining conditions in the first two games were flukish, and they are blown out in the next two.

Nothing can be more embarrassing in a World Series than getting schneidered, unless it would be getting schneidered and having your hat pulled down over your ears, too.

But Lurie is brave and, facing his next crisis, a vote for a new stadium in San Francisco, gets blown out again. At least he doesn’t get schneidered. He gets 84,000 votes, which would have been all right, if the other side didn’t get 86,000.

So, for the Giants, it is arrivederci , San Francisco, maybe by the end of next season.

“We won’t fool around anymore,” Lurie says. “We can’t. We can’t survive in Candlestick Park.”

It would be charitable to state that the emotional climate created by the earthquake killed the stadium proposition in San Francisco.

But the effort probably would have died anyway. San Francisco is just one of those outlaw cities where you can’t get a stadium off the ground.

You can’t in Los Angeles, either. Or in Boston, Cleveland, Miami or New York.

Anaheim knows how to get a stadium off the ground. It doesn’t bother with a vote. It then enlarges a stadium without a vote, too, proving Anaheim knows expediency.

It’s when a town says, “Let the people speak,” that it often goes without a stadium. What it gets down to is, do you want democracy or do you want baseball?

So the stadium debate begins in San Francisco, and on one side of the street, guys quietly proffer a well-reasoned plan whereby bonds would be floated and, over the years, paid off by tenants occupying the stadium.

On the other side of the street, guys are hollering, “Stop the giveaway!” They talk about schools, sewers and the homeless.

Most people don’t know what the heck is happening but, to be safe, line up with “Stop the giveaway!”

Once the shouting match begins, logic is down the toilet and the odds shift steeply against stadium advocates, especially in places such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, which would vote against orange juice.

“Why are you opposed to orange juice?” a voter will be asked.

“Our freeways are bumper-to-bumper,” he will answer, “and you want orange juice?”

“We tried hard to stay in San Francisco,” Lurie says. “This was the second time a stadium proposition was beaten. We admit defeat and we are anxious to get a new deal off the ground elsewhere.”

Right now, the Giants are negotiating with the Santa Clara County area, about 40 miles south of San Francisco, where a plan is under way for a stadium seating 45,000.

“Franchise fees are very fashionable today,” Lurie is reminded. “Are you asking for $50 million?”

“I told them at Santa Clara that if Al Davis gets $50 million, the least I should get is $15 million. But I was just pulling their leg. What we want mainly is a good stadium, parking and peace.”

“And what if Santa Clara doesn’t come through?”

“We will look elsewhere. I like to believe the Giants have a market.”

Lurie bought the team in 1976, quite conversant with the stadium that came with the deal. An environmental bust since its inception, Candlestick Park has cost Bob a lot of money. There have been years when he has drawn 700,000 and less.

Today, attendance has improved, but Candlestick hasn’t, and offering entertainment there 81 times a season, Lurie has shown admirable patience, never trying to muscle San Francisco into a change.

But, of course, the role of Nice Guy in sports is long outmoded, a fact Lurie readily acknowledges. Certain populaces have no cultural commitment to oncoming generations. You put a music center, an art museum and a history museum up for a vote, and they will get knocked out, too.

You ask for a zoo, and the cry will ring out, “Millions for the people, but not one cent for orangutans.”

As far back as 1921, voters in L.A. rejected a stadium. The Coliseum was built only when local newspaper publishers, embarrassed by the turndown, floated private bonds.

The Sports Arena was built without a vote. The Forum in Inglewood required no vote since it was built with private funds, as was Dodger Stadium, narrowly surviving a referendum aimed at blocking donation of public land for the project.

And the rallying cry against the Dodgers? Naturally, “Stop the giveaway!”

They almost stopped it. The Dodgers got less than 51% of the vote. Otherwise, the team that changed the professional sports picture in California would have been run out of town.